PATNA, Jan. 12 -- At a day-long fast, the Bihar Congress launched a sharp attack on the central government on Sunday, accusing it of deliberately weakening the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) through delayed payments, shrinking work opportunities and repeated budget cuts. The party also rejected any move to change the name or basic character of the 20-year-old rural jobs scheme. The day-long fast-cum-satyagrah was organised by Patna Mahanagar Congress Committee at Kadamkuan as part of the 'MGNREGA Bachao Sangram', Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee president Rajesh Ram described the scheme as a hard-won legal right of rural poor families rather than an ordinary government programme. He reminded the gathering that it was the Congress-led UPA government, which introduced the law in 2005, providing 100 days of guaranteed wage employment in rural areas every financial year. According to him, the legislation had played a key role in reducing distress migration, hunger and forced movement out of villages. Ram alleged that the Narendra Modi-led government was slowly strangling the programme. He pointed to widespread complaints of wages not being paid within the mandatory 15-day period, a steady reduction in the number of work days , and year-after-year cuts or stagnation in the Union Budget....